Loose blocks & flakes: Clean ‘em or leave ‘em?

back-cleaned

I clean routes with as little fuss as possible. I may pry a large block off with a pry bar but mostly I use my nut tool to test potentially damaging loose features like flakes and etc on the chossy stuff around here.

If someone comes along and wants to clean one of my routes because of a perceived threat then by all means go for it. Just be sure to claim credit for it, please, so I won't be blamed. Someone posted on a route I did in Lemon Reservoir that a large block fell off it; I didn't recall that being possible and the poster has yet to respond to my query. If I left a large block on a route for you to pull off, that is my shame.

Cleaning friable rock is a judgement call and deserves constant scrutiny. If the route keeps peeling, maybe it deserves a new name.

I have done a fair amount of FA work here in Northern Vermont where the Schist varies from bullet-hard to condensed oatmeal.

When I establish a line I am very aware of the fact that I am setting a precedent on what future climbers will be climbing on. If I leave loose blocks and flakes in place I'm putting pressure on future climbers to leave them that way to preserve my vision.

On the other hand what if I rip it all down? It's probably not a popular opinion but frankly, nobody knows.

When establishing a climb I generally err on the side of pulling down anything I think could hurt a climber/belayer in the future so long as I can remove it without endangering someone in the process. If I leave something in place it's likely because I'm damn sure it won't someday hurt someone. Whether it's trad or sport doesn't much matter to me.

So if I came back and found that someone had chiseled out a chockstone that I had left and it affected the grade? Yeah, I'd be bummed. But would I really throw a fit? Not really. What can I do about it anyway? It's not like it's a bolt that I can remove.

While there is something to be said about putting up a bold FA, but putting up a climb that is just flat out dangerous doesn't really do much for the climbing community at large. You get your ego stroked and future generations have to deal with the question of what to do with your dumb climb full of dangerous blocks. There is a difference between establishing a climb which entails climbing way above your gear with confidence and one which requires tiptoeing over teetering blocks that could come crashing down on your belayer. I find the former impressive and the latter annoying.

Recently they took a huge block (probably close to the size of a car) off a route because it was loose and waiting to fall on someone. This is ok because it likely saved someone's life. I have also seen someone break a hold off a V5 problem and than saw it get glued back on (this imo is bad and should be left broken, at some point i will likely take a hammer out and break it back off cause i don't think glued back on holds is right)

Here's a question..
Yesterday was my first time to the gunks. How about all those softball sized stones at the cliff edge up top?

As we brought the ropes from the Easy-O topout to the rap station atop Baby, one has to be pretty careful not to disturb anything up there. I was trying to coil the rope for this ~60' walk, but my partner elected to just sort of drag it in the name of expediency. He brought one end over, I was tied/ coiling another, and a loop of rope started rolling a stone. I noticed it, stopped it, and then got all worried of what could have been. There was a party climbing on baby.

Would it be good practice if everyone up there just put one of these softballs in their cargo shorts pocket and brought it back to the ground? Would this have an impact on the ecosystem up there?

I just moved the stone further back from the edge, but there were quite a few dozen of these, just waiting for rain or a inattentive climber to send them on their way.

if a potential f/a requires a huge amount of rock removal, then just leave it be.

john strand wrote:if a potential f/a requires a huge amount of rock removal, then just leave it be.

This.

I leave these routes for someone else to bother with. It's not worth the effort and the danger to put up a route that needs that much cleaning that you change the entire rock.

Cleaning off ledges mid route, that's shear enjoyment if you've had a bad day though... hucking boulders off into the woods... It's almost as good as shooting watermelons with a 12 gauge.

This isn't a cut and dry subject obviously, but in the end, I think a route should be left as safe as possible with as little removal as possible. I've tested giant flakes that I thought were welded on with a little budge from my pry bar, and they went sailing. Always be a bit wary on virgin rock.

john strand wrote:if a potential f/a requires a huge amount of rock removal, then just leave it be.

Also, maybe consider asking yourself, is the route really worth it?

The amount of force you're willing to put into cleaning should be equal to the amount of shit you're willing to receive from the people that don't appreciate your hard work.

Eli Buzzell wrote:The amount of force you're willing to put into cleaning should be equal to the amount of shit you're willing to receive from the people that don't appreciate your hard work.

This.

It also depends on area ethics and rock types. If its a choss pile I feel that a good cleaning makes for a more enjoyable route. I use a bricklayer's hammer to clean all of my routes. If the block doesn't come off when prying with that hammer no climber is ever going to bring it down. Just clean the loose crap though, don't "manufacture" the holds.

When I'm developing a climb, I try to take off anything that will likely come off, of whatever size. Especially if I'm looking at it being a gear route rather than sport -- I don't want someone sticking a cam behind a flake or loose block (not noticing that the entire thing is large & detached) and then falling and the cam either pulling out from moving the loose piece, or worse, push the whole block down. I'll apply a crow-bar to anything that looks iffy.

If I encounter something dangerous on an established route, I'll generally leave it alone. Not because I think it fits some FA's vision (in fact, if the FA climbed the thing 20, 30 years or more earlier that piece could have been solid when they climbed it), but because I'm rarely in a place where I can clean it safely. I've probably got a belayer below me, there's likely other climbers around, etc.

Experienced mountaineer and veteran Whistler Search and Rescue volunteer Jai Condon is on the road to recovery after falling roughly 21 metres (70 feet) from a rockface which came apart in his hands and then sheered his safety rope on Sunday, May 31.

"He's doing very well," said wife Angela Rivers from Vancouver General Hospital after Condon came out of surgery Tuesday, June 2, following the accident, which left him with some broken vertebrae and a fractured wrist.

"It's a bit of a miracle," added Rivers.

The long time Whistler SAR member and experienced mountaineer was out for what Rivers described as a "low-risk day of sport climbing."

He was leading a 5.11 climb, a challenging and technically difficult climb, in the area east of Conroy Creek. His partner was below him, anchored into the rock, letting out the rope.

They were on a fairly remote route known as the Outpost, about a 45-minute hike through the forest.

Around 10:30 a.m. Condon was high on his route, about to make his next move, first testing the rock that he was going to pull himself onto.

"When he pulled his weight onto it, it just fell right off the face," explained WSAR manager Brad Sills, after speaking to his team member this week. "(The rock) immediately fell between his legs and cut the rope off, right below him. So now he was falling free.

"It cut it so quickly and so smoothly that the climbing partner never felt the tug on the rope. The first indication that he had of something going wrong was when Jai went screaming past him."



piquenewsmagazine.com/whist…

recent accident around squamish

also in squamish ....


Prying off the flakes of the Stawamus Chief

Loose rocks cleared to make site safe for climbers following rockfall

It is likely every Squamish rock climber’s dream job.

Well known local climber Luke Neufeld spent three days last week about 500 metres above the ground in and around the scar on the north wall of the Stawamus Chief.

Neufeld was the site supervisor and one of the expert climbers from Squamish company Global Rock Works, which was hired by BC Parks to clear any loose rock fragments from the scar created by the April 19 rockfall.

“We’ve basically just been clearing all the debris that kind of caught up – rock sitting on ledges and stuff,” Neufeld told The Squamish Chief over the phone on Friday afternoon, while perched on a ledge for the interview.

“[We’re] prying off a couple bigger flakes that are coming off easier, not too huge or anything. The biggest one is probably about the size of a fridge.”

Neufeld said the workers used static climbing ropes and rappelled down, either tying to trees up above or using an anchor bolt. They used pry bars to work precarious rocks free, he said.

That afternoon, the last on the job, there were three climbers doing the scraping, one support worker in Valleycliffe and one on the Forest Service Road below monitoring to ensure no one was entering the area below, according to Neufeld.

It was a shock even to the seasoned climbers to discover close up how big the scar actually is.

“Just seeing the force of nature here is quite incredible. The first time we rappelled in it was just like, whoa, this is immense. This isn’t just like a little scar,” he said.

Neufeld saw the rockfall happen from downtown Squamish.

“It is hard to imagine just exactly how much rock came down here.”

squamishchief.com/news/loca…

George, I am (from time to time) developing a basalt area south of Las Vegas, NV. These are single pitch sport routes. This basalt is not formed in columns. All of them you can access from the top.

Some of it is choss. Nevertheless, I am not venturing forth thinking to clean all the loose rock off some potential line. I have to "see" the line first.

If, as you state: "in recent years, people have unilaterally and often anonymously cleaned blocks and flakes from established climbs at various levels of aggressiveness"....then I'm not sure how to answer that.

Generally the loose plates and blocks are easy to identify and I remove them and any small pieces dislodged by the bigger rocks displacement. The tougher ones to decide on are the creaking flakes. I test those with my cleaning tool. If I can flex them a bit then off they go; especially if you tap them and they are hollow behind the flake. I have a 5/8" sharpened cold chisel and an old Alpine Hammer to do that work. A crimped flake which blows as you load it, I find, results in a flapper...usually a tip flapper.

I'd agree it is a fine line between manufacturing and cleaning at times. Once you start with the chisel you sometimes find a questionable area keeps sloughing off. When faced with that quandary in this basalt area, I will most likely leave the route as a top rope project. But that is just me. While I own a crowbar, I find I seldom need to use it in this basalt.

And even though where this area is located at a lower elevation than Los Alamos, the winter rains and a few days of freezing can loosen up previously sound flakes and chockstones.

I've got a big fractured flake (5'x 3'x 8') in limestone is a remote area where I've cleaned off everything loose and now 8 years later blocks are loosening off that big flake. I am going to have to go back and trundle some more lunch-box sized blocks next time out to keep it safe.

Generally, for me new routing, if it's loose, hollow or stacked...it gets trundled. But even that can be questioned on this basalt I'm on because at times I will find a stack which is wedged tightly. And with careful technique you can move past it without dislodging anything. On the other hand a tap with the Alpine hammer may loosen the bottom or center keystone and the whole assembly comes down.... My thought at the moment while hanging on top rope or on rap is to clean that stack and not leave a time bomb for some unlucky climber. On lead then it is an entirely different scenario and I may ask my second to clean as the stack is passed.

On an established route I think you have to accept holds may get pulled off/broken back simply because people use the holds in different ways which can lever off anything questionable.

I put up two line in the Sandias. I cleaned up all the loose stuff that I could pick up and throw off the small ledges. There was one loose block that I pried off a ledge. Well this exposed some other rocks that were being held up by the first block. An hour later I was walking around on a new ledge about 2 feet lower than I started and 2 feet x 5 feet long. Overall I think it made the route safer, but I guess my warning is be prepared to finish what you start.

One of my favorite oxumorons. Solid as a rock. There has been a few lines I havent bothered to develop due to questionable rock quality. Maybe not all rock is meant to be climbed.

KrisFiore wrote:I have done a fair amount of FA work here in Northern Vermont where the Schist varies from bullet-hard to condensed oatmeal.

Hey, I just moved to VT a year or so back and have been working my way through Peckman's book. Just thought I'd pop in and say thanks for the work you folks have done!

Choss Lovers Unite!

Tom Sherman wrote:Here's a question.. Yesterday was my first time to the gunks. How about all those softball sized stones at the cliff edge up top? As we brought the ropes from the Easy-O topout to the rap station atop Baby, one has to be pretty careful not to disturb anything up there. I was trying to coil the rope for this ~60' walk, but my partner elected to just sort of drag it in the name of expediency. He brought one end over, I was tied/ coiling another, and a loop of rope started rolling a stone. I noticed it, stopped it, and then got all worried of what could have been. There was a party climbing on baby. Would it be good practice if everyone up there just put one of these softballs in their cargo shorts pocket and brought it back to the ground? Would this have an impact on the ecosystem up there? I just moved the stone further back from the edge, but there were quite a few dozen of these, just waiting for rain or a inattentive climber to send them on their way.

If they're on the little trails that lead to the rap stations then I scoot them further back but don't bring them down. In the gunks the fist sized blocks on horizontals.

TSluiter wrote: Hey, I just moved to VT a year or so back and have been working my way through Peckman's book. Just thought I'd pop in and say thanks for the work you folks have done!

Hey man, no problem. It's a pleasure for me to give back. I'm gone for the summer in the Adirondacks but I'll be back in Fall to put some more stuff up. I have at least a half dozen more projects to finish. Vermont has plenty to offer if you know where to look. Travis is awesome. Hopefully I'll see you around sometime.

-Kris